Tower of Ivory 



BY 

ARCHIBALD MACLEISH 



With a Foreword by 

LAWRENCE MASON 

Assistant Professor of English in Tale College 




NEW HAVEN: YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS 

LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 

MDCCCCXVII 






>^ 



Copyright, 191 7 
By Yale University Press 



First printed, November, 191 7 



©CI. A 4 77971 

DEC ~8 1917 



ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 

Certain of the following poems have appeared 
in The Yale Review and Harper's Weekly. 
To the editors and owners of these magazines 
the author desires to express his appreciation of 
their courtesy in permitting him to reprint. 



FOREWORD 

On the departure for France of my friend 
and former pupil, Mr. MacLeish, in the 
Federal service, it became my privilege to 
prepare his manuscript for publication and 
see it through the press. In this editorial 
capacity I have been beset by but one mis- 
giving — the apprehension, namely, that the 
casual reader might, unless forewarned, read 
these poems for their lilt and melodic charm 
alone without ever penetrating beneath their 
surface. Since this would be a grievous vexa- 
tion to Mr. MacLeish himself, for in his 
eyes lyrical tunefulness is far less important 
than vital underlying idea, I venture to insist 
upon the intellectual content of his work and 
to suggest the fundamental conviction ani- 
mating most of it. Under various symbols 
he is passionately appealing for the intuitive 
apprehension of reality as against the baffling 
limitations of the reason and the senses — as, 
for example, in u Our Lady of Troy," where 
the tragedy of Faustus lies in his purblind 



viii Foreword 



reliance upon positivist science to the exclu- 
sion of the visioned aesthetic gospel pro- 
claimed by Helen. There are, of course, 
other ideas in the volume, such as the subtle 
qualitative definition in "An Eternity" the 
curious problem of remembered inspiration 
in "Echo," and the different reactions in 
the war poems; but on the whole his title, 
"Tower of Ivory," adequately represents his 
predominating idealistic conception, that 
against all the assaults of arid rationalism 
and crass materialism, against all the riddles 
of endless speculation and brutal experience, 
there is an impregnable tower of refuge into 
which man may enter, in the spirit, and find 
there the true values and eternal verities 
which alone can make him victorious over the 
world. So much for the content of his work: 
his command of the beauty of poetic form 
may be left to speak for itself. 

Lawrence Mason. 



September 12, 1917. 
New Haven, Conn. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Foreword vii 

Our Lady of Troy 1 

Echo 22 

Grief 22 

An Eternity 24 

Escape 25 

The Circle 27 

My Body and I 27 

The Bugles Pass 29 

"To Lucasta, On Going to the Wars" ... 30 

The Easter of Swords (April 8, 1917) . . 32 

Sonnet (The Parting of the Ways) ... 33 

Morituri 34 

The Cost of War 35 

The Showman (A Portrait) 36 

An Antique Shop 37 

The Silence 38 

Maria Mea 39 

Imagery 40 

Immortality 41 



X 


Contents 








PAGE 


The Altar . 




. . 44 


Dusk . . 




. . 45 



A Library of Law 46 

A Sampler 48 

Ballade 49 

The 'Chantress 50 

A Song for the Harp 52 

Certain Poets 54 

A Song 56 

Lilies 57 

Charity 59 

To My Son 59 

Soul-Sight 60 

Jason 61 

The Hills of Cleeve 63 

Indian Summers 64 

The Reed-Player 65 

Baccalaureate 67 

Realities 68 



TOWER OF IVORY 



OUR LADY OF TROY 

[In the Dutch translation of the original 
Faust Legend, published by Spiess in 
Frankfurt in 1587, it is established that 
the ''notorious sorcerer and black-artist" 
was seized by the Devil at midnight on the 
23d of October, 1538, while sitting with 
a company of students in the tavern of 
Rimlich near Wittenberg.] 

[Scene: The great room of an ancient tavern 
in the village of Rimlich. Stubs of candles 
guttering in their sconces on the back wall, 
and a smouldering fire in a wide chimney- 
place give an uncertain light. Three stu- 
dents from Wittenberg sit together at one 
end of the oak table. They are singing in 
high good humor. At the other end of 
the board sits Faustus, wrapped in a great 
cloak still wet from the storm that beats 
at door and window, and beside him is his 
servant, Wagner. A strange horologe 
on the back wall points to half-past 
eleven.] 



Tower of Ivory 



Students [singing] 

In duke jubilo — 

Drink and be merry, oh ! 
Wine is old laughter. 

Whoso will rise again 

Sickens and dies again 
Here and hereafter. 

No immortality 

But this reality 
Lasts a day longer. 

Drink and be merry, oh ! 

In dulce jubilo — 
Death is the stronger. 

Christopher 

Better lads! Some'at better, — you there, 

Fritz, 
Your diatonics would make Ockenheim 
Writhe i' the worms. You should have Ah 

— not Ah — 
On that first jubilo — o — o. 

Matthiolus 

Hush you ! We stopped the stranger in his 
tale. 



Our Lady of Troy 



He'd glimpsed at Eden from the Caucasus 
When you two started Duke — 'tis a tune 
I can't forbear the taste of — jubilo ! 
But come, good Doctor; here's to Eden. 

Health! 
Saw you the serpent? 

Faustus 

I saw naught to fear. 
There's naught to fear from Heaven 

through to Hell; 
Nothing that mind can't solve. Mind is the 

king — 

Fritz 

And queen too — ah the gold and scarlet 

minds 
O' Lasses! Hey lads? And the golden lips 
Of many golden tunes, — how goes the 

song ? — 
"Bursts the red grape, sweet oh sweet! 

Lips o' maid are sweeter." 

Christopher 

Be still, Fritz! That's an evil tune, — thin 
tune, 



Tower of Ivory 



No true antiphony. Grant him a space 
To save himself from craggy Caucasus 
Before you make a rainbow of a maid. 

Faustus 

Ah, you've the true mathesis, sir, the pure 
Sciential. Step by step your logic mind 
Works to the core of things; seeks me out 

first 
An elixation, seething of the thoughts 
Hot in the stew-pan of the brain before 
Elixir's had. All true philosophy 
Progresses thus; expulsion here, and here 
Assation till the pure digested truth 
Turns into fire, — else there is myopsy 
And phantoms seen. 

Christopher 

The true mathesis, Fritz ! 
You mark? I'm hailed philosopher. 

Fritz 

His eye 

Reflects a certain doubt upon his tongue. 



Our Lady of Troy 



Faustus 

The Epicuran, Leo Decimus, 

Had such a mind. He questioned how the 

soul 
Which was not, was, and then was not again 
Should be immortal; so he summoned him 
His doctors and his clerks and bade them 

speak 
Backward and forward, he digesting all 
Their doctrines and logomachies and rules, 
Believing here, denying there, and ending 
With Gallus' : "Redit in nihilum quod ante 
Nihil." And judged uncommon well. The 

soul, 
Or, as your Paracelsus saith, the four 
Seed covers of the spirit — what are these 
But thought ill-elixate, a crapula 
Troubling the brain? 

But I digress somewhat 
From Eden; so did mother Eve, but she 
Was woman. Man must ever set his face 
Toward the sunset, make his pilgrim way 
Into the West. There is no pause for dream 
With all the shining kingdom of the mind, 
All truth, all science, all the stars to reap, 
And Time forever clattering at heel 



Tower of IVory 



Like bones the children tie to yelping curs. 
So then, our true mathesis, next and next ! 
From Caucasus I wandered back to Rome — 
Three days in the Vatican invisible, 
Ate with the Pope, snatched from his holy 

dish 
Beneath his holy fingers, stole his cup 
Out from his stretching hand; oh saints! to 

see 
Him grasp for wine to cool a burning tongue, 
Blistered with meat, and miss the cup and 

stare 
Mouth open at its sudden flight toward 

Heaven, 
While all the table thumbed their beads and 

gasped 
Nunc dimittis, and crossed at brow and chin. 
They rang the bells three hours to flout the 

devil. 

Christopher 

They blamed the devil, then. — It's so at 

Rome: 
Lack food, lack gold, lack kisses, blame the 

devil ! 



Our Lady of Troy 



Matthiolus 

The fools! I follow Scaliger, who says 
The devil's dead. Old Trismegistus' self 
Ne'er saw him — only hoofspore in the sand, 
His ass no doubt. And as for your nine 

orders, 
Beelzebub, Apollo Pythius, 
Belial, Asmodaeus, and Abaddon, 
Diabalos, Meresin, Satan, Mammon, — 
Your hierarchy of sprites terrestrial, 
Sublunary, aquatic, — earth and sky, 
I'll none of 'em. 



Faustus 

Your sciolist in truth ! 
Your true agnosticus! "Unseen, Unknown" 
Is sacred text for schoolmen. I myself 
With deepest cabalistic — metaphysic — 
What have I found o' midnights in the flame ? 
No satyrs, cacodemons, foliots, 
No Bel of Babylon, no Greek Astartes, 
No fairies such as Paracelsus saw, 
Nor naiads that Olaus Magnus met 
And feasted with on some moon-stricken 
shore, 



8 Tower of Ivory 

Nothing of these, — but one who is sheer 

mind, 
The globing crystal of the world wherein 
All knowledge gleams and darkens, one who 

knows 
The eagle's way in air, the snake's on sand, 
And man's way who is eagle both and worm. 

Matthiolus 

A marvel truly — was't Vergilius 
The sorcerer of Rome? 

Christopher 

Was't Aristotle? 

Wagner 

I pray you, master, hearken how the storm 
Breathes in the hush, and troubled thunder 

crawls 
Along the rim of earth. 'Tis almost time, 
'Tis almost midnight. Hearken! 

Faustus 

So, my boy ! 
'Twill be at midnight. Naming of a name 
Ne'er brought Shekinah sooner to the ark. 



Our Lady of Troy 



Wagner [hurriedly] 

You told them, master, how the bells were 

rung 
At Rome to flout the devil. Tell them now 
How you became Mahomet. 

Faustus 

Ha! Mahomet! 
To see me clad in linen setting forth 
A crocodility of hours and houris ! 
The sultan prayed to me; but Moslem faith 
Is no theology for scholars. Phew! 
I'll warrant there were heretics enough 
Fouling the sacred porches where I taught. 

Wagner 
And then the serpent ! 



I turned to gold. 



Faustus 

Ah, the golden snake 

Wagner 
The burning fiery ice ! 



io Tower of Ivory 

Faustus 

Here, lad, you're puffing out the tale. 'Twas 

fire 
I froze to ice — the crystal phlogiston. — 



[To Matthiolus] 

You, sir, will understand. But ice on fire ! 
Not Vergil's self had science to do that. 



Wagner 
And how you made king Alexander walk ! 

Faustus 

Hush ! Hush ! The emperor was not o'er- 

pleased 
And all of Innsbruck chattered in its bed. 

Fritz 

King Alexander ! Nay, we heard the tale. — 
A certain Faustus, a philosopher, 
Who had a magic to restore the dead 
And make them rise. Are you — 



Our Lady of Troy ii 

Christopher 

King Alexander ! 
And did he speak? Was't Greek? What 
said he then? 

Faustus 

No word. You understand my science ill 
Who think I raise the dead. The dead are 

dead. 
They lie who say that Iamblicus once 

wrought 
Centurions of Caesar out of air, 
That battled and were stricken and could 

strike. 
The dead are dead; — but metaphysic knows 
How smoke may shine like armor and be 

blown 
To features of dead kings. 'Tis so with all 
Man knows or ever shall know to the end. 
Mind shall be king, shall break in through 

the glass 
That shows itself, itself; shall analyse 
And test and know and fashion into word 
The thing that Is ; but no thought ever shall, 
Until this siderated sphere be burst 



12 Tower of Ivory 

Into a million twinklings, build new thing, 
Nor call up life or beauty from the void, 
Nor make the dead whose flesh is dead, alive. 

Fritz 

I wallow in old ignorance. But still 
There's miracle in that apparent smoke 
You hold so lightly. 

Christopher 

Aye, that's miracle 
To make their hair move. Show us but a 

glimpse 
Of that smoke-Alexander, and your name 
Shall ride with Nostradamus' Pleiades 
Down to the end of Time. 

Matthiolus 

By Heaven, Yes! 
I'll write you in clear latin, with a boss 
Of gold and crimson, on the parchment roll 
Of Wittenberg's immortals. But no smoke 
Of Alexander. 'Twas a tearful king, 
A bulk of griefs. 



Our Lady of Troy 13 

Christopher 

The Apostate Julian 
Declares his soul had entered into flesh 
Before he conquered Persia. He would be 
No better than a lion. 

Fritz 

Circe then ! 
We'll have a woman. What's an age-dead 

man? 
Old heroes are as thick as water-cress. 
But women, Ah! — the roses that are fallen, 
Stars that are dust, old sorrows and old 



songs ! 



What 



woman r 



Matthiolus 
Helen of Troy! 

All 

Helen of Troy! 
Come, call her back for us, let us see Helen! 

Faustus 

Nay, she would be but smoke, a puff of 
smoke, 



14 Tower of Ivory 

Smoke and a shadow, woman and no flesh; 
What fool desires a woman that no arms 
May crush the wine of, and no lips find 
sweet ? 

All 
Helen of Troy, Call Helen up, Call Helen! 

Matthiolus 

Show us that mind can fashion out of air 
The beauty that the flesh surrendered up. 

Wagner 

Nay master, let these necromancies be, 
These magics out of air, these vaporous 
Appearances of flesh long turned to mould. 
The clock whirs for the hour. Oh make 

your peace 
With heaven, if there still be — 

Faustus 

Silence thou! 
The mind knows no conclusion, finds no end, 
But its own seeking; and my seeking was 
The true entelechy, the living seed, 



Our Lady of Troy 15 



The root wherefrom this universe is blown 
A golden flower. Shall I stand because 
Time threatens me ? Shall I not rather flaunt 
My learning in the face of him and say: 
"Here see how I make mock of you, how I 
Have digged this richest treasure from the 

soil 
Of old forgotten centuries of time; 
How I, whom you shall conquer, yet strike 

down 
Your mystery and set this little brain 
The worms shall spoil, above your awful- 

ness — 
And all with science-ashes and a smoke !"? 
Shall mind fear death that knows within itself 
All life and all begetting and all end? 

[There is a sound of thunder and the rain 
beats heavily at door and window. Faus- 
tus goes to the hearth. The candles have 
guttered down and are now dead. The 
students lean over the table watching him. 
Suddenly he stands erect, flinging a hand- 
ful of ashes on the fire. The flames sink, 
then rise in a great flare. Helen of Troy 
stands on the hearth. She is naked and 



1 6 Tower of Ivory 

her limbs shine like silver in the light. 
Her hands are at her breast. Faustus 
steps back.] 

Matthiolus 
'Tis thou ! Forgive me ! 

Christopher 

O the wonderful 
Sad eyes, the lips like prayer ! 

Fritz 

Her beauty seems 
As all the tides of ocean ebbing down 
Out of the heart to her. 

Faustus 

Oh blind! blind! blind! 
Ye eagerly deceived ! Ye gladly tricked 
To dull believing! Fools! And I have sold 
My flesh and old rebellious hope of Heaven 
To doubt what you run panting to believe. 
I have forsworn all peace to keep aflame 
The will you quench in faith — the will to try 



Our Lady of Troy 17 

All life and living in the Alkahest 
Of thought, to set the single mind above 
All seeming, all appearances, to match 
With sense all emptiness, to crumble faith 
Into its ignorance. This blowing smoke, 
This shadow of an age-long vanished girl — 
Ye gape and watch the fuming vapor twist 
And call it miracle. But to the mind 
That knows how light and shadow form and 

solve 
Into each other 'tis a petty trick 
Of eye on brain, a mimicry of life 
As senseless as the many-seeming clouds. 
Ye blind who live in darkness and believe ! 
I wrought the maid to mock you. Now 

almost 
I weep that you have suffered such content 
When such great light illumines. Mind has 

torn 
The veil that hangs before the Riddler's lip, 
Has found the riddle answered, — time and 

space 
And life and very dying has the brain 
Ground to their atoms and their ancient 

laws; 
And soul, and mystery, and stuff of dream 



1 8 Tower of Ivory 

Are rainbow-winking bubbles in the bowl 
That vanish and are nothing. Lo, this ghost 
That makes a mock of them ! This thing of 

air, 
Smoke-wrought and smoke-enduring! Such 

as she, 
Appearances and shadows, are all things 
That flesh may not acknowledge, — yet the 

mind 
Has conquered even these, has found them 

vain, 
A nothingness, an emptiness, a smoke. 

[A great gust of wind shakes the house.] 



Faustus [turning toward the door] 

I fear you not; I've held the globing world 
Of wisdom in my hand. There is no space 
Of all the universe I have not won; 
No door is closed — shall I then grudge the 

coin 
That pays for this, or hoard the penny when 
The ribbon's bought? It's worth the taste 

of death 
To know that death is silence, and the dust 



Our Lady of Troy 19 

Is all and end of our eternity. 
Nay, death has had no hostages of me; 
I hope no morning from him and I fear 
His darkness nothing. It is time. I wait. 

[The storm drops suddenly. In the hush 
the fire grows brighter, and the figure of 
Helen suddenly becomes a glow of light.] 



Fritz 

Look ! Lo ! She moves — her hands are 
raised — she speaks. 

Helen 

Yea, I am she whom men call Helen, maid 
Of Troy. Long years the beauty Paris loved 
Has been a stir of corn-flowers by that sea 
Where memory is a tide and summers fade 
Into the past like shadows. 

Faustus 

'Tis a trick! 
A dream ! A phantasy ! The dead are dead. 
These are no words ! A shadow — 



20 Tower of Ivory 

Helen 

I am she 
Whose flesh is dust, whose flesh can never 

die; 
Helen I am, and yet not Helen, I ; 
The maid that was, the proud bewildered girl 
A world made battle for, — she only sought 
Long silence, long forgetfulness of wars, 
And burning moon-fire, and the nightingales. 
But even dead ye troubled me, ye brought 
The wide flare of your searching through the 

stars 
To harry me, my name was driven leaf 
In winds of your great longing, I became 
All songs that all men sang me, all faint 

dreams 
That sought back into time for me, all grief 
Of hearts but half-forgetting, — I am these. 
I am the pain of young men memorous 
Of beauty that they never knew, and loss 
They never suffered. I am love that flames 
Sometimes at twilight when forlorn sweet 

names 
Of beautiful dead women make a tune 
Like lost Sirenicas. I am the fire 
Your passion builded, shadow of your hearts, 



Our Lady of Troy 21 

A fallen leaf of dusk the riding moon 
Of your adoring shakes upon the grass. 
Lo ! I am she ye seek in every maid 
Ye love and leave again. I am desire 
Of woman that no man may slake in woman. 
This thing am I, — a rose the world has 
dreamed. 

[She vanishes.] 

[There is a long silence. Far off the storm 
moans again. In the darkness comes the 
voice of Faustus.] 

Faustus 

'A rose the world has dreamed'; — and I, I 

stood 
Peak-high in those grey mountains of my 

mind 
And saw all truth, all science, all the laws 
Spread out beneath my feet. I sold all things 
To know that all I knew was all the world 
Of knowledge; and I bought — why, nothing 

then, — 
Or only this at last — a space to know 
That out beyond my farthest reach of 

thought 
All knowledge shines — a radiance of stars. 



22 Tower of Ivory 



ECHO 

When in the winter of heart's desire 
Sirens are dead, and the songs of fey 
Jangled and flat on a musty lyre, 
What shall we call to-day? 

Miracle wrought from a laugh, a kiss, 
Mystery, wonder and breath of May, — 
How shall our hearts remember this 
When it is yesterday? 



GRIEF 

Hadst thou been queen in Babylon, 
My queen who lies so still, 
A proud tumultuous pyre had shone 
Upon thy burial hill. 

And gold and pearl and amethyst, 
Thy crown, thy gilded lyre, 
Thy very slaves had kept thee tryst 
In that high flaming fire. 



Lyrics 

And there had flung an ancient dirge 
Against the burnished sky, 
Like ocean threnodies that surge 
And swell and swooning die. 

But Love has crucified Death's fears, 
The grave has set thee free, 
And all the sweetness of slow tears 
Is turned to mockery. 

O white Lord Christ, Thy love's caress, 
Thy prophecy that saith 
These dead shall wake from weariness, 
Shames all who mourn for death; 

And faith in immortality, 
Affrighted blind belief 
That troubles death's reality, 
Has crushed dim fragrant grief. 

Nay, I were mad to weep for thee, — 

But oh thy silken hair! 

And oh the twilight memory, 

The darkening despair! 



23 



24 Tower of Ivory 

See then, it is not thee I weep, 
It is not thou art dead. 
Thy lidded eyes are but asleep, 
And weary thy dear head; 

I weep the silver dreams we wrought, 
Long years, long years ago; 
I weep the sun-drowsed days that caught 
Our dreams in their sweet flow. 



AN ETERNITY 

There is no dusk to be, 

There is no dawn that was, 
Only there's now, and now, 

And the wind in the grass. 

Days I remember of 

Now in my heart, are now; 
Days that I dream will bloom 

White the peach bough. 

Dying shall never be 

Now in the windy grass; 

Now under shooken leaves 
Death never was. 



Lyrics 25 



ESCAPE 

Ships that down the long seas blow, 
Gulls that slope the winter stars, 
Ye that earth's wide highways know, 
Gleam of white wings, gloom of spars, 

Ye that follow shattered suns, 
Ye that seek the smouldering day, 
Lead me where the long road runs, 
Lead me your desired way. 

Through the intricate dim mind 
Seek I after splendid things, 
Never hearing where, behind 
Pulse of brain, the high soul sings. 

Toward the mirror of myself, 
Down the ways my own feet trace, 
Seek I the eternal God, 
Find I there — the seeker's face. 

Teach me utterly to leave 
This blind dream within a dream, 
Where the mole-like senses weave 
Out of their deep night a gleam; 



26 Tower of Ivory 

Lead me where the bitter sea 
Stings unseeing eyes with sight, 
Mocks the heart's uncertainty 
With itself, stern infinite, 

Numbs the brain that comprehends 
Neither end nor endlessness, — 
Save the solemn flesh that tends 
Solemnly its vineyard press; 

Where the present hand of God 
Gleams across the tempest, where 
Naked I may feel His rod, 
Pray, unfettered then with prayer. 

Ye that follow shattered suns, 
Ye that seek the ash of days, 
Lead me where the long road runs, 
Lead me your desired ways. 



Lyrics 27 



THE CIRCLE 

Beauty like storms driven 

Where my soul is caught, 
Peace like sorrow shriven 

Where my peace is wrought, 
Still I know thee riven 

Chained in me, low-brought, 
Wind that shakes my heaven, 

Rhythm of my thought. 



MY BODY AND I 

My body and I, we rested 
Under a thorn one noon, 
We talked of days long wested 
And nights in the moon. 

My body lay in shadow, 

Face in the grass, and said, 

"What thorn in what deep meadow 

Will blow when I'm dead? 

And how will you taste blueberries 

Bobbing in stolen milk, 

Or hear Baron Thrush to the cherries, 

Or touch spider silk? 



28 Tower of Ivory 



How, when no flesh makes you weary, 
How will you find your rest, 
Heels to the logs and brown sherry, 
When body is dust ? 

There'll be no sleep nor forgetting, 

For I was lid to your eyes, 

I was dusk and sunsetting, 

I the moonrise. 

There'll be no lying in flowers 

Adoring the white moon's face, 

For I was time and the hours, 

Distance and space. 

Spirit you, I was earthen, 

But color and fragrance are 

A dust and a faint wind's burthen, 

And dust is the star. 

You are the sun unshaded — 

But I was mist on the dawn, 

Half-lights, shadows that faded, 

Glooms that were gone. 

Where then, where will you wander 
When body's crumbled and dead?" 
I'll lie long summers under 
And dream you again, I said. 



Lyrics 29 



THE BUGLES PASS 

Who's for the war ! 

Who more 
Makes end of doubting! 

Who'll wake 
Now trumpets shake 
The earth with shouting! 

I know 
Where dips a way 
Has merry ending; 

There go 
The young and gay 
That sing descending. 

I know 
Where climbs a road 
Into to-morrow; 

There go 
The seed of God 
Toward the furrow; 



30 Tower of Ivory 

I know 
Where shines the sun 
On windy spaces, 

Where low 
The shadows run, 
The swallow races; 



But Oh! 

When youth is gone 
The glory passes. 



"TO LUCASTA, ON GOING TO 
THE WARS" 

Now has all time culminated 
In this pulse of dizzy blood; 
Now eternity is mated 
In this swift suspended flood 
Of the sense that sings, Forever 
Does this perfect Now abide, 
And the brain that echoes, Never, 
Never, never turns again this tide. 



Lyrics 3 1 

Oh, the desperate dumb clinging 
Of the unbelieving hands ! 
Oh, the nerves grown dull with flinging 
Up the mind's o'er-written sands 
All the fleetingness of wonder, 
All the moment's cresting foam, 
That withdrawing leaves thereunder 
Vanishing, dim legends where it clomb. 

Unforgotten, unremembered 
Shall thy beauty haunt the brain 
Like old magic cities embered 
Where the golden sunsets wane; — 

Ah, my love let be to-morrow ! 
All to-morrow is is now, 
All we'd lose and all we'd borrow; — 
Laugh, and prove all time more brief than 
thou. 



32 Tower of Ivory 



THE EASTER OF SWORDS 
(April 8, 1917) 

Now out of this corruption has been born 
This incorruption. Out of this decay, 
This passionless, sick serving of the day, 
This staleness — from this seed, this rotten 

corn 
Of shame and doubt, has sprung this flowered 

thorn, 
This burgeoned pain, this fire. We that were 

clay 
Have lifted up our eyes, — and lo ! the spray 
Of bright swords and the challenging high 

horn! 

So Christ is risen, so the wakened soul 
Has lifted back the heavy stone and stands 
Aflame with morning; what then if it be 
Death, not the lily, shining in his hands? 
Already, ere the first reveilles roll, 
Our death is swallowed up in victory. 



Sonnets 33 



SONNET 

(The Parting of the Ways) 

We had each other's youth; the halcyon 
At wrist, Hymettos but a sunny sail 
Beyond each morning's morrow, and the gale 
Set westward. Oh, we had the towering sun, 
The lift of the year, flood tide, — all things 

begun, 
None ended, none attained; even to fail 
Was tart grape under tongue, and life a tale 
That should have pause for reveries anon. 

We had each other's youth; why then what's 

lost 
If we who one time, 'top of happy hours, 
Found each the other and himself found most, 
Finding how self in all selves blows and 

flowers — 
If we who were one seeking and one ghost, 
Losing each other, find what loss is ours? 



34 Tower of Ivory 



MORITURI 

Not as Ulysses, overwise with age, 
Shall we sail out beyond the westward gate 
Into the unknown seas. Not destinate, 
And weary of man's seeking, and the mage 
Of subtle-changing earth and that vast sky 
Where wonder walks, shall we sail curious 
To do the last adventure. Oh, not thus, 
Not satisfied with living, shall we die. 

But we shall meet death running, with our 

lips 
Still glad of the morning; and with widening 

eyes 
Still thirsty for the light, we shall surprise 
The secret under that old hooded Fear, 
And touch that face with eager finger-tips, 
And find but Change, who crowns with youth 

the year. 



Sonnets 35 



THE COST OF WAR 

Oh, not the loss of the accomplished thing! 
Not dumb farewells, nor long relinquishment 
Of beauty had, and golden summer spent, 
x\nd savage glory of the fluttering 
Torn banners of the rain, and frosty ring 
Of moon-white winters, and the imminent 
Long-lunging seas, and glowing shoulders 

bent 
To race on some smooth beach the sea-gull's 

wing: 

Not these, nor all we've been, nor all we've 

loved, 
The pitiful familiar names, had moved 
Our hearts to weep for them; but oh, the star 
The future is! Eternity's too wan 
To give again that undefeated, far, 
All-possible irradiance of dawn. 



36 Tower of Ivory 



THE SHOWMAN 

(A Portrait) 

A golden wind came running down the grass 
And in and out the sun and shadow went 
The stir of blowing dresses and the tint 
Of scarf and leaf and laughter — ay, it was 
The scene for her; she sat, self-mimicking, 
The center of her central-whirling world, 
And tuned her mood to mockery, and skirled 
A showman's lilting flourish on the string. 

Her words were swift as swallows in a 

gale — 
Darted and flashed and poised, and then in 

flight 
Essayed the Heavens, and then were vanished 

quite 
In some perplexing Orcus — ran the scale 
Of mirth from platypod to the eternal 

sprite — 
But never left the wares she had for sale. 



Sonnets 37 



AN ANTIQUE SHOP 

Her chair now, see how curious the line 
Of dragons down the old mahogany 
And that daguerreotype — you almost see 
How red her cheeks and how her earrings 

shine. 
And that's her lustre crock for cherry wine, 
And that — ah, that frail web of filigree — 
Grandmother's wedding night-cap, worn 

when she 
First slept in that old bed you thought so fine. 

Ah, little bride, when you and I are fled 
Beyond the farthest echo of to-day, 
And all our hearts immortalized is dead, 
And all our love dreamed amaranth is grey — 
Think you a broken net of silver thread 
Could mark the world how joyous was life's 
May? 



38 Tower of Ivory 



THE SILENCE 

A song between two silences Life sings, 
A melody 'twixt night and patient night. 
He strums his lute against the fading light 
To gild the shadow that the gloaming brings, 
And Love is but a plucking of the strings, 
A throb of music staying music's flight, 
A little note that hardly shall requite 
Thine outstretched hand that mars Life's 
lute-playings. 

Yet, when the last faint echo of that note 
Has stirred the cypress-leaves at eventide, 
When night has stilled forever Life's white 

throat, 
And his gold lute lies shattered by his side, 
We two shall follow through a world remote 
The silence whereinto Love's music died. 



Sonnets 39 



MARIA MEA 

What more was She, whom men these thou- 
sand years 

Have loved and sung and reverenced and 
prayed, 

Than thou to me, deep-hearted little maid? 

She cradled Godhead in Her arms, Her tears 

Were for a visioned cross, a nation's jeers; 

Her joy, the helpless hands of God that 
strayed 

About Her throat, the lullaby She played 

An angel's song, a music of the spheres. 

But thou with patient faith in things unseen, 

Reliance on the beautiful, blind trust 

In love's eternity of life, dost screen 

My heart from my own heart's most bitter 

thrust, 
Making my love, late stained with this 

world's dust, 
Thy happiness, thy glory, and thy teen. 



40 Tower of Ivory 



IMAGERY 

The tremulously mirrored clouds lie deep, 
Enchanted towers bosomed in the stream, 
And blossomed coronals of white-thorn 

gleam 
Within the water where the willows sleep — 
Still-imaged willow-leaves whose shadows 

steep 
The far-reflected sky in dark of dream; 
And glimpsed therein the sun-winged 

swallows seem 
As fleeting memories to those who weep. 

So mirrored in thy heart are all desires, 

Eternal longings, Youth's inheritance, 

All hopes that token immortality, 

All griefs whereto immortal grief aspires. 

Aweary of a world's reality, 

I dream above the imaged pool, Romance. 



Sonnets 41 



IMMORTALITY 



I 



As it hath been, it shall be evermore. 
The shadow of the dawning future creeps 
Across the drowsy dial-face, and sweeps 
The graven numbers marked and told before 
By old forgotten hours. So ever o'er 
The paths of yesterday to-morrow keeps 
A slow insistent course, and evening reaps 
Eternity on every sunset shore. 

From slumber into slumber all things go; 
Our yesterday is dawned from infinite 
Oblivion; to-morrow's fading light 
Shall darken to that misted morn, and lo ! 
No terror clothes the oblivion we know. 
Breathe deep the gloaming of death's second 
night. 



42 Tower of Ivory 



IMMORTALITY 

II 

Since Golgotha the learned doctors prate 

Of peace and easeful immortality, 

As if strange fruit of that accursed tree 

Had bloomed and withered but to dissipate 

Old fears, and that a glutton world might sate 

Eternal longings with eternity — 

A world content the cross of Christ should be 

Its suffering and death impersonate. 

Ah, Lord, wouldst Thou we let Thy blood 

redeem, 
Thy torture comfort, and Thy sorrow save? 
Or, restless, labor with the soul God gave, 
Aspire and suffer, follow beauty's gleam, 
Endure the barren agony of dream, 
And win brief life — not freedom from the 

grave ? 



Sonnets 43 



IMMORTALITY 

III 

Nay, I have lived before, and otherwhere 
Have lolled against the breast of God's 

Unseen, 
And watched Infinities of Things careen 
With shouted laughter down the startled air, 
And caught the Truth by his entangled hair, 
And plucked at Beauty's burnished wing to 

preen 
A broken feather from its golden sheen, 
And smiled with Love, slow walking, white 

in vair. 

How else — when you come running to sur- 
prise 
My heart with sudden arms about my throat, 
And laugh with such a wishful little note — 
How else am I, Love's acolyte, so wise 
To know that dreams and passion turned 

devote, 
And joy grown sad, are Love with wide 
girl's eyes? 



44 Tower of Ivory 



THE ALTAR 

I built an unnamed altar in my heart, 
And sculptured sacred garlands for a frieze 
From delicately petalled memories,— 
The fragrance of a word, the fragile art 
Of ash-gold hair, dim visioned things that 

start 
With radiant wings from mist of reveries, 
And vanish at the telling as a breeze 
Blurs mirrored stars in dark pools set apart. 

But, as I worshipped reverently there 
The symbols of the beautiful, there came 
A light aslant the shadows of my prayer 
That silenced mine uplifted lips with shame. 
The garlands coldly carven in that fair 
Unmeaning tracery enscrolled — thy name. 



Sonnets 45 



DUSK 

Think not I may not know thee kneeling 

there, 
For all I lie so silently in death; 
Ay, ever as the candle flickereth, 
I watch the light weave shadow in thy hair, 
I see thy white hands eloquent in prayer, 
I hear the agony of sobbing breath; 
And words of faith thy sorrow whispereth 
Upon thy lips are echoes of despair. 

I hear — and wonder how one time we played 
At this; called Death's reflection to Love's 

glass, 
And blurred the image with a laugh, afraid. 
Now Death is come and gone, the solemn 

mass 
Low sung, the mirror shattered; fancies pass, 
And heart in heart we weep Love's body laid. 



46 Tower of Ivory 



A LIBRARY OF LAW 

Adjudicated quarrels of mankind, 

Brown row on row ! — how well these lawyers 

bind 
Their records of dead sin, — as if they feared 
The hate might spill and their long shelves be 

smeared 
With slime of human souls, — brown row on 

row 
Span on Philistine span, a greasy show 
Of lust and lies and cruelty, dried grime 
Streaked from the finger of the beggar, Time. 

I wonder if the little letters there, 
Black-stamped and damned eternally to bear 
The records of old sin, must never long 
For that fair printed world of ancient song, 
Where, line on martial line, they stretch 

across 
The vellum's edge to some irradiant boss 
Of scarlet lettering, where sits a quaint 
Gilt-featured and attenuated saint, 



Lyrics 47 



That world where they grow volatile and 

fling 
A spray of golden butterflies a-wing 
Up through the blue infinities of dream 
To brush God's feet, and flutter, wings 

a-gleam, 
About the veinless marble of His chair, 
And make a sudden splendor through His 

hair; 

That world where they drift ghostly down 

the dusk 
Of old forgotten twilights, toss the musk 
Of primroses against his face who reads, 
Make prayers from the clicking of old beads, 
Blow long dead summers through the naked 

trees 
Leaf after leaf, call back faint memories 
Of lips that once were sweet, and eyes once 

glad, 
And little hands that set the spirit mad 
With plucking of invisible lute strings, — 
All, all the vanished magic of dead things. 



48 Tower of Ivory 



A SAMPLER 

She stitches quaint embroideries 

My lady of white hands, 
With fishes from the China seas 

And beasts from foreign lands. 

And flowers out of Araby 

And sage Saharan ants, 
And cockatoos from Nickerie 

And wrinkled elephants, 

And ships with swelling purple sails 

And cargoes pavonine, 
And whalermen and spouting whales, 

And porpoises in line. 

And cows of rich autumnal hues 
A-browse in flowered meads, 

And shepherd dogs in buffs and blues 
And shepherd boys in tweeds. 

She weaves them all into a net, 

And, silk for Circe's wine, 
Enchants them there with mignonette 

In intricate design. 



Lyrics 49 



And thence methinks she has that art 
Whereby her fingers twist 

Into the dull web of my heart 
Silver and amethyst. 



BALLADE 

"A pilgrim cowled in light is love, 

Who kneels at many shrines and prays." 

So sang I knowing naught thereof. 

"He kneels beside the thronging ways 

And ever in the dust he lays 

His reverent soul at Mary's feet 

Beneath her all-caressing gaze. 

For only dreams of love are sweet." 

"And lo, a pagan god is love, 

His shining head bound round with bays." 

So sang I knowing nought thereof. 

"He breathes the breath of burning Mays 

Plucking from Autumn's lap of days 

Gold fruits of life to crush and eat, 

Yet lustful are his lips always, 

For only dreams of love are sweet." 



50 Tower of Ivory 

But last I learned the truth of love, 
That carnal love the world obeys. 
'Tis but a web which Gaea wove 
With warp of pain and weft of days, 
Where vast, insensate, o'er the haze 
Of mortal dreams she has her seat, — 
A web to catch whom soon she slays. 
For only dreams of love are sweet. 

Envoy 

How fairer than the garnered maize 
The shadows in the windy wheat, 
And throstle notes than roundelays. 
For only dreams of love are sweet. 



THE 'CHANTRESS 

Lo, the lady Margaret! 
Cunningly her fingers fret 

Witcheries in clay. 
She is Circe, sorceress 
Mulberries make red her press, 
Moon-ripe poppy blooms confess 

Her way. 



Lyrics 5 1 

Lo, the lady Margaret 
Spreadeth beauty for a net, 

Springeth souls thereby, 
Springeth souls to light her clay, 
This for laughter, this to pray, 
This to dance the Spring away, 

And die. 

Lo, the lady Margaret! 
Her dark hair is springes set, 

Her two hands a spell. 
Whom she tangleth, him they bind, 
Ariel in oak-tree rind, 
In the dark clay, dumb and blind, 

To dwell! 

Lo, the lady Margaret! 
All her dryad folk forget, 

Bubbles in the bowl — 
April and the running seas, 
Stars and rainbows, what are these? — 
So her clay have foam and lees 

Of soul. 



52 Tower of Ivory 



A SONG FOR THE HARP 

Iseult, Iseult of Ireland, 
The years are born again, 

Again Tintagel's towers stand, 
And blows the corn again, 
The russet corn again. 

Again, again the shoreward waves 
Make wondrous undertone, 

That whispers down the forest naves 
When melody is flown, 
When twilight birds are flown. 

Iseult, Iseult, remember thou 
How soft the music swept — 

Nay till the lily moon arow 

I'll dream that time has slept, 
All flower-like has slept. 

So softly was the harping wrought 
As in the web of sound 

The wings of melody were caught, 
And fluttering music bound, 
And moth-winged music bound. 



Lyrics 53 

Iseult, Iseult, when night is drawn 

I'll cross the Irish sea, 
And in the moon's white fragrant dawn 

Steal down the dusk to thee, 

Across the years to thee. 



Iseult, my queen, all loves that were 
Born on a kiss and killed, 

Resurgent with the surging year, 
Are in the heart fulfilled, 
The secret heart fulfilled. 

Forget? Nay thou can'st not forget 
Nor peaceful close thine eyes. 

Upon thy rose the thorn regret 
Shall scar with memories, 
Scar peace with memories. 



54 Tower of Ivory 



CERTAIN POETS 

Oh, words and words and words, — a twitter- 
ing blur 
Of sparrow wings that puff up from the rye 
When something hidden stirs there; up they 

fly 
A wheeling, huddled, undecided whir, 
And what it was aroused them, Pan or cur, 
Appears not, — save that 'twas a prodigy, 
A portent sure, and, with its passing by, 
A new world dawned, and grubs and rye- 
fields were. 

And so their verses go, — a clamorous puff 
Of words unformed, unbeautiful, distraught, 
That eddy in the mood like feathered stuff, 
And underneath the sound of them a thought, 
Of something hidden stirring, — like enough 
Apocalypse or naughtiness — or naught. 

A portent then ! a dumb and groping urge 
Of something blind like voices in a mist; 
'Lord, but it 'wilders one ! To feel it twist 
Old earth with iron, mutter in the forge, 



Lyrics 



SS 



Threaten in smoke; — why, look you, we're 
a-verge 

Of worlds undreamt, and every silly fist 

That curses God's a sign! There's won- 
drous grist 

A-grinding, wondrous new-sown corn 
a-surge.' 

New worlds ! These things were seedling in 

dead Cain. 
But you, for you old magics yet remain 
Of restless whispering winds that press along 
Dim casements of the sense-enshuttered 

brain. 
Beauty has called you, and the worlds that 

wane 
From crescent into crescent of thin song. 



56 Tower of Ivory 



A SONG 

Youth is old before his time, 

Helas ! Heighho ! 
Watcheth where the white stars climb, 
Readeth windy wheat to rhyme, 
Danceth to no tune, no chime, 

Heighho ! 

Youth is drear before his days, 

Helas! Heighho! 
Weepeth where the cypress sways, 
Chanteth Grief a doleful praise, 
Danceth to no roundelays, 

Heighho ! 

Youth is done with lovely Life, 

Helas! Heighho! 
Putteth Lady Hope to knife, 
Taketh Mistress Worm to wife, 
Hath no joyous Hippogrife, 

Helas! 
Danceth to no merry fife, 

Heighho ! 



Lyrics 57 



LILIES 

Lily, red wood lily, 
Flaunting fairy lily, 
Lily springing where the heel 
Was down-impressed of Pan; 
Lily at whose throat the moon 
Flutters like a moth a-swoon — ■ 
Round and round thy shining reel 
Deft-foot things of Pan. 

Lily, Pan's red lily, 

Sunlight-drunken lily, 

Golden, golden lily tipped 

With dawn's drowned fire; 

Lily, burning lily, 

Mad and mad and shrilly 

Trip the hooves where Pan has tripped, 

Gleam the flanks mad Pan has nipped, 

Gyre, gyre, gyre, 

Mad and mad and shrilly, 

Pipes go never stilly, 

Hooves make eager rhythm where 

The song is thee, 



58 Tower of Ivory 

Shrilly, shrilly, shrilly, 
Flare and flute note trilly, 
Hearken, hearken, hearken there, 
Shadows dance and darken there, 
Hand and hoof and haunches bare 
Encircle thee. 

O lily, red wood lily, 
Flaunting fairy lily, 

Never stop the piping of the Pan god's 
tune : — 
"Life's a music hath no word, 
Death's a lute no hand has stirred, 

Eternity's a rondeau in an old, old rune." 
Never stop their piping there, 
Never yield them — never spare, 
Lest thou dream Christ's lily fair — 
More fair than thou. 



Lyrics 59 



CHARITY 

Since my Beloved chambered me 

To beat within her breast, 
And took my soul to light a shrine 

Her soul had decked and dressed, 
And caught my songs about her throat, — 

Dissected, known, confessed, 
I dwell within her charity 

A half-unwelcome guest. 



TO MY SON 

You are her laughter 

Blown to a rose, 
Singing heard after 

The song's at the close. 

You are the sorrow 
Was dusk in her eyes, 

You are the morrow 
Is night where she lies. 



6o Tower of Ivory 



SOUL-SIGHT 

Like moon-dark, like brown water you 

escape, 
O laughing mouth, O sweet uplifted lips. 
Within the peering brain old ghosts take 

shape ; 
You flame and wither as the white foam 

slips 
Back from the broken wave: sometimes a 

start, 
A gesture of the hands, a way you own 
Of bending that smooth head above your 

heart, — 
Then these are vanished, then the dream is 

gone. 

Oh, you are too much mine and flesh of me 
To seal upon the brain, who in the blood 
Are so intense a pulse, so swift a flood 
Of beauty, such unceasing instancy. 
Dear unimagined brow, unvisioned face, 
All beauty has become your dwelling place. 



Lyrics 6 1 



JASON 

I lay where stain of poppies crept 

Across a summer hill, 
And drowsy droning grasses slept 
With heavy heads, and wild bees kept 

Their slumbrous music still. 

I lay and let my lazy dreams 

Drift with the idle breeze 
Like leaves that float on autumn streams, 
Gilded as fairy quinqueremes, 

Down to their magic seas. 

I dreamed, — and all the fragrant earth 

Was as a sailing cloud. 
From tears and sorrows, for my mirth 
I wove a rainbow mist, and birth 

I folded in death's shroud. 

I dreamed, but ever from the vale 

Beneath the sun-drowsed hills, 
There rose the pulsing of the flail, 
The hiss of scythes, the mower's hail, 
The hum of water mills : 



62 Tower of Ivory 

And through the voices of the fields 

A sweeter voice that said, 
"It is the coward heart that yields 
To dreams its heritage, nor wields 
A sword unscabbarded." 

Ah, voice that singeth bravely there, 
Dost think that dreams are peace? 

Dost think it cowardice to dare 

Eternity of blind despair 
For gold of fairy fleece? 



Lyrics 63 



THE HILLS OF CLEEVE 

I heard the fairies keening on the uplands 

yestereve 
When scarce the vagrant grey of dusk was 

done, 
When sheep were calling darkly down the 

shadow hills of Cleeve 
And far below the village candles shone. 

I heard the hare-bells knelling in the wet 

wind off the wold, 
I heard the clouds go creeping down the hill, 
I heard the dew soft falling from the last 

long rifts of gold, 
I heard how singingly the stars were still. 

I heard the fairies keening on the uplands all 

night long, 
A-weeping soft and sadly for their queen; 
"She's vanished like the echo of her own 

forlorn sweet song, 
She's turned our twilight dance to twilight 

teen. 



64 Tower of Ivory 

"Oh, dreams are only dim desires, and songs 
are only tunes, 

The flowers deck the graves of other years, 

The Springs are fleeting children of a thou- 
sand fleeting Junes, 

And only old and endless are our tears." 



INDIAN SUMMERS 

(i) 

The Day of Falling Leaves 
When gold October reaves 
The May's 
Lost Roundelays, 

When Autumn stoops to list 
The wind, mad organist, 
Pipe tunes 
Of dancing Junes, 

And Autumn's butterflies 
Drift earthward, petal-wise, 
A-swing 
On perilous wing, — 



Lyrics 65 



(2) 

So, in our passion's death, 
When knowledge whispereth 
With wise 
Unholy eyes, 

And thy sweet flowered mouth 
Is grey with Autumn's drouth 
And love 
Dreams not thereof, 

Our Day of Falling Leaves 
Calls back the Spring, deceives 
The sense 
With transience. 



THE REED-PLAYER 

(After Macleod) 

A hollow reed against his lips 

He played a soaring strain, 
That fled his dancing finger tips 
Light as a swallow wheels and dips 
Above the flowing grain. 



66 Tower of Ivory 

The Song of Songs it was, strange wrought 

Beyond the heather hills 
From memories and dreams, and taught 
By shepherd women who had caught 

Its lilt from mountain rills. 

The beating of a heart I heard 

In that forlorn sweet air, 
The singing of a distant bird, 
A sigh, a softly uttered word 

And echoed laughter there. 

"Play me a song of Death," I whispered then. 
He raised his hollow reed as one who longs 
To turn to dreams, and smiled, and played 
again 
The Song of Songs. 



Lyrics 67 



BACCALAUREATE 

A year or two, and grey Euripides, 
And Horace and a Lydia or so, 
And Euclid and the brush of Angelo, 
Darwin on man, Vergilius on bees, 
The nose and dialogues of Socrates, 
Pon Quixote, Hudibras and Trinculo, 

w worlds are spawned and where the dead 
gods go, — 
All shall be shard of broken memories. 

And there shall linger other, magic things, — 
The fog that creeps in wanly from the sea, 
The rotten harbor smell, the mystery 
Of moonlit elms, the flash of pigeon wings, 
The sunny Green, the old-world peace that 

clings 
About the college yard, where endlessly 
The dead go up and down. These things 

shall be 
Enchantment of our hearts' rememberings. 



68 Tower of Ivory 

And these are more than memories of youth 
Which earth's four winds of pain shall blow 

away; 
These are youth's symbols of eternal truth, 
Symbols of dream and imagery and flame, 
Symbols of those same verities that play 
Bright through the crumbling gold of a great 

name. 



REALITIES 

I 

The people of the earth go down, 

Each with his wealth of dream, 
To barter in the market town 

A star for a torch's gleam; 
To barter hope for certitude, 

And mysteries of love 
For passion's little interlude; 

And joy for the laugh thereof. 

They sell their treasuries of dreams 

For dream's realities, 
Their wealth of fairy quinqueremes 

For ships of Salter seas, 



Lyrics 69 



Their gods for shapes of tortured stone, 
Their faith for shrines that fall, 

The unknown for the touched and known, 
Life at the living's call. 

They barter songs for the throat that sings, 

Frail dawns for drowsing days, 
Eternal moods for brittle Things, 

Thrush notes for roundelays, 
The flame of thorn and eglantine 

For fallow labored lands, 
Tall lilies touched of Proserpine 

"^or lilies of fair hands. 

They buy and pass no more that way; 

Their eyes forget the star, 
Forget the mysteries of May, 

Forget the dim and far. 
They build them tower and high wall 

To bolt against the spring, 
To shutter out the mavis' call, 

And heart's remembering. 

II 

But Time, a taper guttering, 
Drops in a slow decay. 



70 Tower of Ivory 

And Youth, a white moth fluttering, 
Blows with the wind away; 

And walls and towers made of hands, 
And faith, and roundelay, 

And laughter, and red fallow lands, 
Pass like the withered spray. 

And certitude grows rank with ease, 

And idols turn to mold, 
And passion's cup holds bitter lees, 

And pale, soft hands grow cold; 
All shimmering reality, 

The world that shines and seems, 
The earth, the mountains and the sea, 

Are shadows of old dreams. 



Ill 

Yet when the splendor of the earth 

Is fallen into dust, 
When plow and sword and fame and worth 

Are rotted with black rust, 
The Dream, still deathless, still unborn, 

Blows in the hearts of men, 
The star, the mystery, the morn, 

Bloom agelessly again. 



Lyrics 7 1 



Older than Time with ages shod, 

The matins of a thrush, 
Deeper than reverence of God, 

The summer evening's hush. 
Than trampling death is grief more strong, 

Love than its avatars, 
And echo of an echoed song 

Shall shake the eternal stars. 



3W7-& 



